Energy Resource Lesson Seven : Using a Product's Life Cycle

The lesson introduces the concept of a product life cycle and how it can be used as tool for the consumer to make more environmentally friendly product choices. The lesson uses the life cycle of a CD or DVD as an example to investigate the life cycle of an everyday product and examine options for reusing, recycling, or disposing of the item after its useful life. Students are introduced to pollution prevention strategies (the three Rs), how consumers can use them, and how the strategies can be incorporated at different stages of a product’s life cycle to make a product more economically and environmentally sustainable.

Students answer these essential questions: 

What are the economic, social, and environmental consequences of your product choices? 

What tools and data can consumers use to help make better decisions about energy and resource use and personal actions?

Subject/Target Grade

Science and Social Studies/ Middle School (7-9)

Duration

45 minutes – Classroom setting

Materials

per class

• 6 home-grown or locally grown apples

• individual serving size packs of applesauce

• jar of applesauce

• EPA’s Life Cycle of a CD or DVD (poster: large size)

• Life Cycle Assessment (transparency master) 

• Pollution Prevention (The 3Rs) (transparency master) 

• Product Life Cycle Stages Cards (optional student activity on the MEECS Energy Resources CD) 

• The Life Cycle of a CD or DVD (answer key) 

• overhead projector

per small group

• CD (1 per group)

• EPA’s Life Cycle of a CD or DVD (poster: small size)

per student

• large sheet of paper

• markers

• Self-Assessment: Student Product Choice and Use (student activity) 

• The Life Cycle of a CD or DVD (student activity)